Last Kiss of Summer

by Marina Adair

  “I have more apples than I know what to do with.” And she could barely afford those.

  That seemed to please Luke, since his shoulders relaxed a little and that grin grew. “Well, that’s great news, since I want to buy back your apples.”

  “This is pleasantly unexpected,” she said, sitting back in the chair. “When Fi agreed to sell me the acres of apples at cost, I had no idea how I was going to use them all. I mean, that’s like—”

  “Forty-eight thousand pounds of apples.”

  “Wow, I knew it was a lot, but…forty-eight thousand pounds?”

  “Approximately.”

  “Wow,” she said again, wondering how many pies she’d have to make to use up all those apples. “So it got me thinking, what happens to the remainder of the apples that are left over at the end of the harvest? Do I pay for them, or is it a wash? The contract didn’t stipulate, and I didn’t think to ask about it at the time.” She’d been too swept away by the thought of owning her own bakery—a good twenty-five hundred miles from Philip and all the disappointments of her past.

  “Well, wonder no more,” Luke said as if he were the genie, and all she had to do was rub his bottle. “I am willing to offer you ten percent over your cost.”

  “Really?” That was beyond generous. And a life saver. She didn’t want Luke to know, but she had been running the first week’s numbers and something wasn’t adding up. Her revenue rivaled Fi’s, but her profit wasn’t anywhere near what she’d expected. In fact, Kennedy was doing little more than breaking even on anything apple-related—which was ninety-nine percent of her merchandise. She needed to offload some of her apples or add some non-apple items to her menu. Maybe she needed to do both. “I can work with that. After I prep and freeze the apples I’ll need to carry me through until next season, the rest are yours.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched, as if her statement amused him. “I was talking about buying all of your apples.”

  “All of them?”

  “All three acres.”

  Kennedy choked on a laugh, because surely he must be joking. She was the owner of Sweetie Pies, a bakery specializing in apple delectables. She needed apples in order to make pies. And not just any apples, the famous Sweetie Pies’ recipe called for specific apples—Callahan apples. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

  Without even blinking, he said, “I’ll pay you double your cost. That’s doubling your investment in just two weeks of being in business.”

  A familiar prickle of irritation pulsed behind her right eye. “I have a degree in finance, I can do the math.”

  “Then you know this is a great deal for you.”

  He was offering her a ton of money, but something about the way he was posturing himself had warning bells blaring. He’d purposefully worded his offer so that she could either accept or look stupid.

  “It’s not a great deal for someone who owns a bakery with a big neon apple hanging over the door.”

  “Listen, sweetness,” he drawled, but this time it came off as bad as calling her “little lady.” “I will give you enough money to buy an entire orchard of apples. Then you’d never have to pay for apples again.”

  “I don’t need an orchard, I just need those apples. The ones I already have. Because you and I both know that the secret ingredient is Callahan apples, and not those delicious reds that you grow, the special ones,” she said, making sure he knew that she knew her business. “Mixed in with the typical baking apples every baker in America uses, the special ones add a tartness that can’t be duplicated. And there aren’t many orchards growing this kind of heirloom apple.”

  Luke’s smile faded. Right along with that easygoing charm he normally wielded. In fact, it was the first time Kennedy had seen him look frustrated. His brows puckered and his face kind of folded in on itself, as if he were pouting.

  “It’s because they’re cider apples,” he said sharply, and Kennedy could hear the soul-deep frustration in his voice, but it was the desperation she saw in his eyes that got to her. He needed those apples for some dream just like she did. “No one but my aunt would be crazy enough to mix cider apples in with Granny Smiths or Honeycrisps. But one year the frost killed our entire Granny Smith crop and she went rogue.”

  “Well, it’s brilliant.” Kennedy leveled with Luke. “And I can’t keep Sweetie Pies open without them. So I’m sorry if you were counting on them for your cider, but I use them in some way in nearly everything that’s on my fall and winter menu.”

  They were too bitter and tart to be the main ingredient, but used correctly, they gave a depth to all of her recipes that she’d never been able to reach before.

  Luke signed, long and tired, and she almost felt bad for him. Almost. Then he said, “I’ll buy you out of the shop. What you paid plus twenty percent. You walk with a nice nest egg and away from all of the risk attached to owning a small business. It’s a win-win.”

  “For who?” Certainly not for her. That kind of money could be a life changer, but she liked the life she was creating. A lot. “Do you think it’s as easy as throwing some money my way and I’ll just happily up and relocate?”

  Luke looked at her as if that was exactly what he thought. And something about that rubbed her the wrong way. The way he casually offered to buy her out of her future, putting a price tag on her dreams, had frustration coursing through her body.

  Philip had done the same thing. Buying her out of their condo as if with the exchange of a few bills they were good—and he was forgiven. And she would be just fine.

  And why not? It had worked for her mother. And her father.

  “What is it with people?” she mumbled, realizing the old Kennedy would have packed up without complaint. Taken the hollow gesture and moved on.

  Well, not the new Kennedy. If she was going to pack it in, start over again, it would be on her own terms. Not because someone was paying her to go away. She was ready for some of life’s icing, and Sweetie Pies was her best chance to make something for herself.

  “I guess I like the risk, because this woman isn’t for sale. And neither is her shop.” Kennedy stood, but Luke remained in his seat.

  She watched him school his features, any hint of softness gone. “Look, I didn’t want it to go down this way, but there’s no way that contract will stand up in court.” He forked off a piece of tart and savored it as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “What does that even mean?”

  “I’m trying to be a good guy here.” Luke pulled out a corporate check, from Callahan Orchards made out to her, Kennedy Sinclair, with a blank line in the amount section. “Take the money.”

  “And what? Leave town?” Find a new place to start over?

  He shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”

  After a lifetime of rejection, Kennedy was good at masking her emotions. A master at ignoring the sting that came with being tossed aside like yesterday’s garbage. Any ounce of compassion he’d earned evaporated.

  Quick.

  Kennedy couldn’t believe she’d been so easily hoodwinked. A crooked smile, a touching moment over her grandma, and just like that, she’d forgotten that she was done being charmed. Done with men. “You didn’t come here to help with the nuts. You came here to take my apples.”

  “I promised to help, and like I said, I always keep my word.” He sounded sincere and genuine all at the same time, and Kennedy felt some of that anger turn to confusion. “And I promise that this is the best offer you’re going to get, so I suggest you take it. Everyone knows my aunt wasn’t in her right mind when she sold the shop.”

  “The hell I wasn’t!” The door opened and there—with her flapping apron, rolling pin, and a tray full of cooled pies—stood one of Kennedy’s helpers. And the crazy aunt in question.

  Today her hair was silver spikes, her lips coral and puckered in outrage, and her attitude was as warm and fuzzy as a hornet.

  “Not right in the head,” she mumbled, setting the trays down. “Be
en running this town for nearly a century and no one’s ever dared to question my sanity.”

  Kennedy had a sneaking suspicion that their silence on the matter had more to do with fear of retaliation than opinion, but she wisely kept quiet.

  “Aunt Fi.” Luke stood and took off his ball cap, as if he were twelve and caught tracking mud through the house. “What are you doing here?”

  “Helping out our new friend,” Fi chided. “Didn’t think she could run this on her own right out the gates, now did you?”

  “I didn’t think she’d be running it at all, especially since you and Mom have turned down every offer I brought your way over the years.”

  “Unless you’re dealing with apples, your pickers always led you astray.”

  Luke ran a hand through his hair, leaving it in complete disarray, but there was a teasing, a lightness to his voice when he spoke. “Just make sure you explain that to Mom when she comes home from her cruise and discovers that you sold her shop.”

  “Mom’s home,” Paula Callahan said, trailing out of the kitchen with a display tray of cookies in one hand and her cane in the other. “And she knows all about the sale.”

  “What are you doing?” Luke said, his anger about the sale replaced with concern. He easily plucked the tray from his mom’s clutches as if it didn’t have six five-pound HumDingers on it. “Holding the tray like that is bad for your hands.”

  “Well, I can’t carry it on my head.”

  “You shouldn’t be carrying it at all.” Luke set the tray on the counter and took his mom’s frail hands in his larger ones. Gently, as if she were the most precious thing on the planet, he massaged her wrists. “That’s why you hired Lauren.”

  “Lauren’s in class,” Paula said, waving him off as if she didn’t love the doting. “And this morning I woke up and thought, I need some time in the kitchen, so I called Kennedy, who was nice enough to put up with two old coots, and keep us on part time.”

  A decision that in hindsight wasn’t so bad, since Lauren was a student at the local university and could only work early mornings before class, and help with the occasional prep in the evenings.

  “Now before you go saying things you’ll regret, or misquoting facts, come give your mom a hug and tell her about your trip.” Paula held out her arms, and Kennedy found herself wanting to walk into them.

  An unfamiliar urge that shocked Kennedy to the core since she’d stopped needing hugs a long time ago. She remembered the first time she’d come home from school to find their apartment completely empty. She’d been seven, and her mom’s boyfriend decided he wanted to move to Florida—with everything but Kennedy.

  Kennedy sat on the porch all night smelling like peanut butter cookies and gardening soil, waiting for her mom to come home and sweep her up in her arms like other moms did with their kids and tell her everything would be okay. That she wasn’t losing her home and her school and her friends. Promise her that Daryl was wrong, and Kennedy wouldn’t be left behind. But when her mom pulled up after collecting her last paycheck, there were no hugs, no words of comfort, just a story about wanting to see the ocean and how it was a trip for two.

  It was a year before she’d see her mom again, a year of wishing for her love and that hug she’d dreamed about but never received. Even after that year came to an end, and Daryl turned out to be Mr. Wrong, there were no hugs. So Kennedy worked hard to keep herself guarded, to keep an emotional distance from anything that could leave her vulnerable.

  But there was something so comforting about Paula. A warmth and security radiated from her that drew Kennedy in.

  “Only if you promise to stop carrying things that heavy.” Luke gave a final rub to the middle of Paula’s palm, then clutched both of her hands. “It was good. Better than good.”

  “I never had any doubt, which is why I made your favorite cookies.”

  Luke smiled, boyish and a bit embarrassed. It was the first honest smile Kennedy had ever seen from him. It took him from handsome to lethal.

  Luke’s concern softened and he leaned down and gave Paula a kiss on the cheek, pulling her in for a hug. Kennedy felt a strange tug of longing watching the obvious flow of affection between the two. The way that Paula pulled Luke in as though he were still her precious baby, and how Luke wrapped his body protectively around hers.

  It was so intimate, so warm, Kennedy felt as if she were intruding on a private family moment.

  She’d witnessed them before, but never having experienced one herself, she was always unsure of what to do. Stay? Leave? Insert herself into the moment?

  The first sounded awkward, the last humiliating, so as ridiculous as it seemed, Kennedy was leaning toward leaving—her own shop. On the busiest day of the year.

  Thankfully, a buzzer went off in the kitchen, paving the way to a graceful exit.

  “I’ll get that. It’s my pecan pies,” Kennedy said, her feet already in motion.

  “Pecan?” Fi said, her words puckered like she’d just sucked on a lemon. “Who sells pecans at the Apple Festival?”

  “I was just changing things up a little,” Kennedy said over her shoulder. “Adding a few new items to spice up the menu.”

  “The menu is spicy enough,” Fi snapped, clearly offended. “And this here is apple country, not pecan country. People around here know that.”

  “Fi,” Paula chided in a sweet voice. “We use pecans all the time.”

  “As decoration or for texture, not as the star. The apples are always the star!”

  “You always know how to balance texture and heart,” Paula said, gently taking Fi’s hands. “It’s what makes your pies so special. Everyone know that.”

  Kennedy watched as Fi’s stance softened, her defensiveness disappeared, and she became warm, even a bit shy at the compliment. Paula took the time to validate Fi’s concerns and offer her comfort without caving. It was impressive, and Kennedy wondered how it felt to have a support system like that. Someone who knew your deepest fears, your biggest weaknesses, and loved you through it all.

  Her heart a little raw, Kennedy turned to face the older woman. “I’m not taking away any items, Fi, just adding a few.”

  “You can do what you feel is right,” Paula said with a motherly smile that Kennedy was helpless to return. Then to Luke, “She’s a smart one, very creative. Pretty, too.”

  Luke didn’t comment one way or the other. Just sent Kennedy an unamused glance.

  Off balance by the whole family reunion, and feeling unsure of where she fit into the mix, Kennedy said, “I have pies needing me in the kitchen. You guys have fun catching up.”

  * * *

  It was well after closing when Kennedy dropped a ball of dough back onto the cutting board and continued to knead. One look at the mangled ball of flour and shortening told her she wasn’t over Philip’s betrayal as she’d originally thought.

  Or nearly being chased out of her own place.

  By Luke.

  It wasn’t bad enough that he’d shit all over her morning, a morning that was shaping up to be a pretty spectacular day. He’d gone and made her feel out of place. In her own home.

  Okay, so she technically resided in Fi’s guest cottage since the apartment above the shop needed more than a little TLC to make it inhabitable. But this shop, the menu, the customers…

  They were slowly starting to feel like hers.

  After the success she’d had today, another complete sellout with orders already placed for tomorrow’s Apple Festival, she knew that she could make it here.

  Yet she couldn’t get past Luke’s offer. How he thought she was the kind of person who would give it all up for money. For a moment, a brief moment of weakness when she’d watched him and his family reunite, she considered it. Considered what it would be like if she never found that for herself, and considered taking the money. Then she realized that this was her best shot at making a home.

  Sadly, two weeks into becoming a resident and Kennedy had managed to make an enemy out of the t
own’s golden boy. But that wasn’t going to stop her.

  With a heavy sigh, she dusted some more flour over the top. Realizing it was hopeless, that even Betty Crocker couldn’t save this batch, she tossed it in the garbage and grabbed another ball of dough.

  That’s when she noticed Paula standing in the doorway. Luke’s mom was wearing the same cream-colored pants and coral-colored knit sweater from earlier, but the weariness that had grown as the day had progressed was gone. Paula looked refreshed—younger.

  Free of pain.

  “What are you doing back?”

  “Saving that dough from a senseless beating.” Paula laughed. “Unless you’re looking to start selling Play-Doh, why don’t you give it a rest?”

  Kennedy relaxed her hands. “I’m prepping them for the Apple Festival tomorrow and I have two dozen more pecan pies to go.” That wasn’t counting the Dutch apple pies and Granny Smith pinwheel biscuits she had left on her to-do list. Kennedy decided after a long day, she’d rather prep everything tonight and get an extra few hours of sleep, then have to be back here at four.

  “Honey, no one’s going to buy pies missing the magic ingredient.”

  Kennedy stilled, mid-knead. Had Luke convinced his mom to renege on the sale? “You mean apples?”

  “No, dear,” Paula mused as if Kennedy were the funniest thing in the world. “People can taste the difference between a pie made out of obligation, and one made from the heart.”

  Kennedy was short on heart at the moment, but she had spunk. “How about one made from determination?”

  Paula gave Kennedy one of those motherly smiles that seemed to warm the whole room. “I guess that works, too.”

  Kennedy watched as the older woman hobbled over to the little table at the back of the kitchen, and that was when Kennedy noticed the small basket the woman was carrying. Without explanation, she pulled out and placed an array of storage containers on the table that were steaming and smelled incredible. Then from her Mary Poppins basket, she took out two plates, some silverware, matching mugs, and a bottle of wine.